In recent years, there have been provided recording/playback apparatuses that receive video content such as a digitally broadcasted program, record the received video content to a recording medium such as a hard disk recorder, and play back the recorded video content. Before recording the video content, these recording/playback apparatuses perform encoding/compression processing on the video signals of the video content.
The encoding/compression of video signals is generally performed in accordance with the MPEG-2 system standard etc., and as the precision of the compression is raised, there is a large increase in the amount of operations that must be performed in predictive encoding processing for the compression, and more time is required for the encoding/compression processing. It is therefore necessary to maximize use of the processing capacity of the recording/playback apparatus when performing encoding/compression processing.
Also, patent document 1 discloses a recording method that enables saving digital signals not formatted according to the MPEG system, such as digital audio data that has been recorded on a CD (Compact Disc) etc., in an existing CD format compliant with MPEG system standards. This recording method involves collectively recording digital content, which is not formatted according to the MPEG system, in a transport stream format without performing compression processing.
Patent document 1: Japanese Patent Application Publication No. H09-261237